


Boxes Within Boxes

by ereshai



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Christmas Party, Established Relationship, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Pre-Canon, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-06 10:58:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5414300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ereshai/pseuds/ereshai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paul and Charles have gotten engaged after six months of knowing each other. Phil and Clint are moving a little more slowly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boxes Within Boxes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wintermute](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintermute/gifts).



> Many thanks to icywind for reading through this for me on such short notice :)

**=Now=**

Office parties are both the best and worst thing about undercover work, at least for Clint. On one hand, free food; on the other, maintaining cover while making small talk. He’s never blown his cover at one of these things, but the possibility is always there; it stresses him out. Natasha is so much better at this, but she’s working another angle on their target, so Clint is stuck. At least Phil is stuck with him.

It’s a protection-slash-fact-finding op, meaning their target is in danger from the bad guys, but might also be a bad guy himself, so he doesn’t know they’re there to save-slash-investigate him. It’s all very straight forward, in a roundabout way. Clint hates it. He’s masquerading as a glorified errand boy - the job title is ‘clerk’ - which gives him access to people and their offices throughout the company, including the boss himself. Phil is pretending to be a minor accountant, with access to the financial side of things. They’ve even got a legitimate excuse to speak to each other often without raising suspicion, which is Clint’s favorite part about the whole mission.

“Uh-oh, look who’s under the mistletoe!” The overly enthusiastic voice belongs to Samantha, the fourth-floor receptionist. She’s enthusiastic about everything at the party - Christmas is her favorite time of the year, a fact she’s shared with everyone at least twice. Clint looks around and finds her staring at him with a bright smile.

Clint looks up slowly. Yep, there it is. A sprig of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling. It’s not quite above his head, but close enough. He looks down again and Samantha is walking toward him with a smirk on her face. There’s no way for him to avoid the oncoming kiss without coming off like a dick, and that is not the kind of attention he needs right now.

Phil appears at his side. “I’m cutting in,” he tells Samantha with a sharp smile. “Fiancé’s prerogative.”

Samantha gives a disappointed pout, but there’s a gleam in her eye as she watches Phil turn toward Clint. He reaches up with one hand and cups Clint’s jaw, tilting his head a little before leaning in and pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. Clint takes full advantage, putting his hands on Phil’s waist and pressing closer, prolonging the kiss when Phil tries to pull away.

They break apart and Clint looks around. Nobody really pays them any attention until Samantha gives a loud laugh and starts talking.

“I was there the first time they met,” she says with glee. “It was sooo cute. They literally ran into each other. Files were all over the floor and they looked at each other and bam - love at first sight. They literally ran into each other.” Samantha proceeds to repeat the story a couple of times to the people on either side of her, who are nodding and smiling politely. They’d probably heard her tell it before.

It hadn’t been that difficult to arrange the first ‘meeting’ between their cover identities, or to build that into an office romance. That made it much easier to coordinate their efforts and share information - not having to hide their relationship was just a bonus. Clint just thinks it’s funny that their real first meeting also took place over paperwork. It hadn’t been love at first sight, but it had been the start of one of the best relationships in Clint’s life.

**=Then=**

_Hah, take that Agent ‘Please fill out Form 66-B in triplicate’ Coulson_ , Clint thought as he drove a pocketknife into Agent Coulson’s door, pinning the aforementioned Form 66-B (in triplicate) just below Coulson’s nameplate. Who cared about Form 66-B anyway? Agent P-is-for-paperwork Coulson, apparently. Certainly not Clint.

Coulson’s constant stream of memos regarding after-action reports and requisition forms and goddam ‘Permission to wipe my own ass, sir’ forms was really getting on Clint’s nerves. He’d joined SHIELD to shoot things and save lives, not fill out endless amounts of paperwork. Three times. Didn’t SHIELD have photocopiers? Coulson could shove his memos where the sun didn’t shine along with the paperwork and Clint would tell him so to his face, as soon as he actually met the man. He was never in his office, that was for sure. Probably out compiling his list of non-paperwork compliant SHIELD agents and consigning them to the Greenland station.

The knife in the door prompted yet another memo and a form to pay for damage to SHIELD property. Agent Passive-Aggressive Coulson. At least he’d returned the knife.

The dozens of memos waiting for Clint when he got back from a week-long op were the last straw. Now he was supposed to fill out the damn forms while he was in the field? Nope, no way, not gonna happen. Clint gathered up every single memo he’d received from Agent P. Coulson (so he’d saved them and held on to his rage - he never claimed to deal with shit in a healthy way) and ran them through the shredder, collecting the tiny bits of paper in a plastic grocery bag. It didn’t seem like enough, so he ran a few blank forms through, as well. In triplicate.

Once he had enough, he took to the vents. Transporting the bag noiselessly was an exercise in stealth, and that’s how he would explain it away if caught and questioned. Of course, he wouldn’t be caught, because his stealth skills were faultless.

Coulson’s office was dark. Clint eased the vent out of the way and maneuvered the bag over the opening, upending it and releasing the contents into the room. He had just closed the vent when he heard the door open and the light flicked on. He froze.

Silence. Then footsteps rustled across the office. From his vantage point, Clint could see a portion of the desk; the phone was picked up and a number dialed.

“Agent Benson, would you come to my office?” A pause. “That can wait. Now, please.”

Coulson had a pleasant voice and he was very polite. He was obviously a scary guy. Anyone who could keep their cool like that right after walking into a disaster area of an office was not someone to mess with. Maybe Clint wouldn’t get away with this so easily. He grinned; he loved a challenge.

Agent Benson showed up pretty quickly - Coulson was definitely a big bad around SHIELD. Clint knew who Benson was; the guy from HR who kept failing his qualification trials for field work. It made him really grumpy, especially around active field agents; Clint avoided him whenever possible.

“Agent Benson,” Coulson said pleasantly. “Have a seat.”

Clint could hear the chair being brushed off and then the creak of wood as Benson sat down.

“Is there a problem, Agent Coulson?” There was that grumpiness. Benson was an idiot.

“Judging by the state of my office, I would say that there is. Who is it this time?”

“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” Benson said stiffly.

“You’ve been routinely hounding our more impulsive agents for their paperwork, above and beyond what is required of them. In my name. In every other case, they’ve gone through their immediate supervisor to handle this, but this time you seem to have succeeded. So who is it?”

Clint held his breath. Had he been played? By a desk jockey? Shit. And now Coulson would be after Clint as soon as he figured out it was him. Hello Greenland station.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Benson was still playing dumb. Probably a bad idea for him, career-wise, but good for Clint. He might still get away with this.

“I’ve been letting this play out, but we’ve got enough for an internal inquiry. If you cooperate, that will be noted for the record. It will also be noted if you don’t.”

Benson mumbled something.

“Why don’t you go back to your office and think about it? I’ll need the list of names by the end of the day.” Coulson was still being pleasant. Who was he exactly? Obviously not just a cog in the paperwork wheel. He could potentially make real trouble for Clint at SHIELD. Clint figured Fury wouldn’t let Coulson fire him, but that still left a lot of potential disciplinary actions. There was plenty worse than the Greenland station.

Benson left and everything got quiet. How long did Coulson plan to stay in his office? It was pretty late; Clint had waited until there weren’t as many possible witnesses around. He wasn’t going to move now and chance Coulson hearing any little sound he might make.

“You might as well come down,” Coulson said conversationally. “I’ll figure out who you are eventually.”

What did he have to lose? Clint opened the vent and went through head first. It was a bit of a tight fit. He caught hold of the edge of the opening and swung his lower body through, then let go to land on his feet. A scrap of paper fluttered down in front of him.

“That was easier than I expected,” Coulson said. “I thought I might have to threaten to shoot you.”

Clint snorted, then choked when he got a good look at the man standing behind the desk. He’d seen Coulson before, from a distance, not that he’d known who he was. This was Fury’s go-to guy. The Big Cheese, Sitwell called him. Suddenly, termination of one kind or another didn’t seem so far-fetched.

“That was a joke, by the way,” Coulson told him. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Agent Barton.”

Clint nodded warily. Obviously, SHIELD agents didn’t just go around randomly shooting people, and an office full of paper bits wasn’t due cause, no matter how irritating. But this guy could definitely fuck things up for him, no potentially about it.

“You aren’t in trouble.” Coulson sat down and indicated the chair in front of the desk. Clint sat.

“He maneuvered me pretty good,” Clint said roughly.

“He was careful to target agents who’ve never worked with me. Everyone believed those memos were legitimate.”

“But I was the only one who did something like this.” Clint kicked at the paper on the floor in front of his chair.

“The others threatened to quit. You just had a different reaction.”

“Uh-huh.” Agent P. Coulson was way too understanding, but Clint was willing to take him at face value if it got him out of there in one piece. “So I’m good? Free to go?”

“I didn’t say that.” Coulson smiled. “My office needs to be cleaned up. I’d appreciate it if you got it done before I come in tomorrow morning. Will that be a problem?”

Clint’s shoulders slumped. He had really been hoping he wouldn’t have to deal with the mess. “Nah, no problem.” He was getting off easy, and they both knew it.

“Great. See you tomorrow for our meeting. Eleven a.m., here in my office. Don’t be late.” Coulson tucked his phone in his jacket and grabbed his overcoat from its hook by the door.

“Sir?” As far as Clint knew, he wasn’t scheduled to meet with Coulson, like, ever.

“I want you on my team. We’ll discuss it tomorrow.” Coulson smiled at him again and left Clint standing in the middle of his office.

**=Now=**

The kiss is not enough to satisfy Samantha. “You still haven’t told us the story of your engagement. I bet it was sooo romantic.” She looks at them expectantly. “Who proposed to who?”

Clint can practically hear Phil thinking ‘whom’; he takes pity on him and answers the question. “Paul proposed,” he says with a grin, putting his arm around Phil and pulling him closer. They haven’t agreed on a cover story, so Clint decides to go over the top. Samantha will eat it up. “It was the anniversary of our first kiss. Paul surprised me with this huge box, just massive. There I was thinking he’d bought me a snowblower or something. I thought it was weird, because we live in an apartment, we don’t _need_ a snowblower, right? So I opened it, and what do you think I found inside?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Another box! I’ve heard of people doing that, but it’s never happened to me. And I had no idea what it could be. But I hoped, just a little,” he adds with a sideways grin. Phil gives them a constipated grimace. “And after fifteen boxes, I’m sitting there with a ring on my finger. I said yes, of course. I almost cried.”

The almost crying is just the right touch, Clint thinks, because Samantha is beaming. She wraps her arms around both of their necks and squeezes. “I’m so happy for you,” she squeals and then she’s gone, off to repeat the story to their coworkers.

“We’re going to hear about this from her for months,” Phil murmurs in Clint’s ear.

“We would have been hearing about something from her no matter what. Let’s just hope this wraps up sooner rather than later,” Clint whispers back. They’ve already been undercover on this job for six months; ‘Paul’ and ‘Charles’ - Clint’s cover - are moving pretty fast relationship-wise, but a distraction is needed. Their protectee-slash-suspect had asked his head of security to do another background check on them. Their covers are solid, but they had to do something to avert suspicion. Getting engaged invited attention, and they wouldn’t do that if they had something to hide - at least that had been Natasha’s reasoning, and Clint and Phil had agreed.

Their target leaves and the party starts winding down. Someone else is handling off-site protection, so Clint and Phil are free for the rest of the night. They leave immediately and return to their undercover apartment. Their actual apartment - the one they've lived in for almost two years - is much nicer, but they are committed to their cover story.

Clint unlocks the door and steps inside. Sitting in the middle of the living room is a large wrapped box. He turns to Phil.

“What…?”

“It isn’t a snowblower, if that’s what you’re wondering.” Phil looks grumpy.

“I was just blowing smoke up her ass,” Clint protests. “You really…? Is this-“

“Only one way to find out.” The grumpiness melts away and now Phil just looks a little nervous. Clint begins to open his gift.

Six boxes later - not fifteen, thankfully - Clint has a ring box in his hand. He doesn’t open it. “You have to do it right,” he tells Phil, holding out the box.

Phil takes it and goes down on one knee. He opens the box and holds it up. “Clinton Francis Barton-“ Clint groans but Phil presses on, “I love you and I want to spend the rest of our lives together, no matter how long or short they may be. Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” Clint says immediately and pulls Phil to his feet and into his arms. He almost cries.


End file.
